Published: September 18, 2026
MONROVIA – President Joseph Boakai has welcomed a plan by a group led by a former U.S. diplomat to help preserve and promote Providence Island, saying the effort could strengthen historical education, promote sustainable tourism and create opportunities for communities associated with the site.
Boakai met Thursday with representatives of the Friends of Providence Island, according to a statement from the Embassy of Liberia in Washington. The delegation was led by Alison Grunder, who the embassy said served as U.S. chargé d’affaires in Liberia from 2018 to 2021, and Allison James, memorialization project director at James Madison’s Montpelier, a historic preservation institution in the United States.
Boakai encouraged the group to work with the appropriate Liberian institutions and stakeholders toward what the statement called “a nationally coordinated and sustainable approach to the preservation and development of the island.”
The statement said the delegation presented its vision for supporting the island’s preservation and building public appreciation of its importance to Liberia’s history and national identity. It did not say what the initiative would involve, how it would be funded, who would carry out the work or when it would begin.
Also at the meeting were Liberia’s ambassador to the United States, Al-Hassan Conteh; Minister of State without Portfolio Hadja Mamaka Bility; Director General of the Cabinet Nathaniel T. Kwabo; and Bill McGill Jones, deputy minister for administration at the Ministry of State, the embassy said.
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